AU Shippin' Out November 3-7: Gears of War 2

Plenty of games to spend your hard-earned cash on this week.

If the financial crisis facing the global economy hasn't hurt gamers' wallets yet, then this week is sure to do so. There are games for everyone this week, ranging from family entries such as Little Big Planet and The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon, to more mature-orientated games such as Gears of War 2. To top it off, the three biggest games of the week, Rock Band, Gears of War 2, and Little Big Planet, are all coming out on the same day!

There's no doubt that Gears of War 2 is one of the biggest games, if not the biggest, for the Xbox 360 this year. Set six months after the original, Gears 2 sees Delta Squad, led by the game's protagonist Marcus Fenix, bringing the fight to the locust after they discover a way of sinking and destroying entire cities. Building upon the first game's hugely popular online mode, Epic has upped the players per match to 10 total and has added in three new game modes. Gears of War 2 comes out in Australia this Friday.

With the offending Koran verses now removed from Little Big Planet, Sony is going for take two of the game's release this week. LBP wooed gamers around the globe with its unique art style and cute characters during its global debut at GDC 2006. Although LBP features a fully fledged story mode (narrated by Stephen Fry), one of LBP's biggest attractions is its focus on user-generated content. Thanks to the game's in-depth level-creation tools, players can create and upload their levels onto their "My Planet" space for other players to play. Expect to see LBP in stores on the seventh of this month.

Even before Rock Band came out in the US, its Australian launch was uncertain. Well, just 12 days shy of a full year on from the initial US release, Rock Band is finally coming down under. Developed by Harmonix, the original developers of the Guitar Hero franchise, Rock Band is a combination of SingStar, Guitar Hero, and Drum Mania, resulting in a full band experience. There are 58 songs on the disc, coming from all eras of rock, such as Metallica's "Enter Sandman" and Bon Jovi's karaoke favourite "Wanted Dead or Alive." Rock Band will be sold in three separate packs: hardware only (includes the guitar, microphone, and drums) for A$199.99 ($136.54), hardware plus software for A$249.99 ($179.63), and the stand-alone software, which will set you back A$99.95 ($68.73).

Why the PC store dates are sooo much more late than the other platforms? This game had been in stores since Nov 6 for PS3, 360, even for the PSP and DC??? Such a different platforms need such different graphics, gameplay, resolution and else. For the platform, which they make these games in (THAT'S CALLED COMPUTER, and has graphics, gameplay and physics are much much much more similar to PS3 and 360 than DS and PSP, this game will be in stores in Q1 2009? What is that?? It means it is 3, 4 or 5 months later than all the other platforms!!

I've been hangin' for Gears 2 for so long now. A couple of days ago I was an hour and a half into Dead Space when my 360 suffered from red ring of death syndrome :-( now it's going to be a real long time before I get to play anything.

was waiting for gears2 for ages. paid for it in full near 6 months ago... but can i remove myself from fallout for even just 1 day? i got to play dead space for all of 1 night before fallout came out and now its gathering dust. *sigh*